The Last Princess-Set Light in the West
by A Sub-Creator
Summary: Succumbing to the elements while staggering to shelter in ramshackle-at-best school remains, a statue-stationed gateway gives a listless 'pirate' a chance at a second life, and, with three tenacious innocents, the strength to abandon a once proudly-held and earned title. But do you really get to come back from the things you've done, or are you already too far gone?


**Honesty**

**_I course through the veins of the virtuous; the blunt; the developing; whistleblowers with many morals; those cruel if only to be kind_**

**_But I must tell you, I dwell not in embellishers_**

"No!.. No, you can't see her, I'm sorry. Sick. She's very sick..."

**_The self-deluding_**

"Compromise our safety? Destroy our community? I'll _die_ before I let that happen."

**_The neglectors of the whole truth_**

"You all... have no idea how grateful ya' should be. My world... it's changed, to give ya' the clean-cut version..."

"And the full one, if you could?"

His chin's untamed tendrils tickle his exposed sternum, head dipping. He draws a quick breath through the nose, releases it without a sound. Or maybe not at all. His eye traces over the coverings draped over his xylophone frame and the picc at work to amend that; the straps abrading his wrists, his fingers brushing the rails gleaming so brightly as if to put his remaining eye out of commission, outshined only by the plated protections fitted unto the minders of his cross-examiners. He feels the unwavering stares on him, from each and every pupil pair in the room. Hesitantly, he levels his pockmark with the gentle and sympathetic, but curious Unblemished behind the shield of his quarantining dome.

"This sickness," he flaccidly motions to the blood charts giving life to the slab of wall at his right, "spread to all of us. No cure known. Total governmental collapse, least in my country, from what I saw, heard. Things... and people... turned ugly..."

Silence molests the enclosure, both inside and out. One spawned from shock, before the slow dissolve into respect. But the need for answers always outweighs tact in the end, and the inquiry of "How long has it been?" beckons him. It's strained - a struggle for composure he's all too familiar with. Either her solicitude is all-encompassing, or she had ties to the shithole from whence he spewed. Whatever the case, it's none of his business or concern.

"Goin' on two years now," he intones. "As I'm sure I show."

The creature bows her head, eyes clenching. The air again stills.

"Yet thou liveth on," ripples through it. "No small feat."

The commentator flanking his griller clears her throat uncomfortably when his doesn't bring anything, his acknowledgement without his voice.

His palpitation spikes ever so unnoticeably at her follow-up:

"Was thou... alone? Is a rescue party needed?"

One monitor beep sounds, then another, then an-

"We are sorry if we are tactlessly approaching a subject as delicate as this, but there but is a small window of op-"

"No," he says. "No, not anymore..."

The noise around him seems to magnify as, almost as if by tripping into trance, he involuntary submits another of his own. "... He just lost it..."

The score of the monitor beeps ease back into the lone corti companion.

"And to whom does thou refer?" emerges the tentative inquiry.

The specimen before them stills, a featureless look glossing over. Lids fall heavily, but infrequently; maw parts as tongue idly awaits orders.

It receives them

"... The man in charge."

He aims to quench their festering answers now. Like with a bandaid or trigger, he fixes to make it quick.

"I was in a town. It was safe, but..."

The composure falls dead.

"Er, a pardon if you will, your Highnesses," a nurse curtseys - as much as a pony in a hazmat can - "... But I must entreat you to postpone this; his PIC line needs changing, and he needs rest just as much."

The ceiling-brusher of this authoritative Query Quartet returns her subject's concern with a nod and a smile, which, despite its size, burns with the brightness of the sun. "Of course." Turning to her original receiver - "We shall continue when you're condition has improved. Until then...?"

Her tongue staggers, searching to see whether or not it's come to a stop.

It hasn't, and no longer does he hesitate.

"Brian"

**_Or the liars_**


End file.
